Why did turn-of-the-20th century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov name "Uncle Vanya" after his play's most unhappy, most aimless, most pitiful and self-pitying character? As Vanya, actor Hugh Bonneville (the patriarch in "Downton Abbey") has the answer.

On the page, it’s not always obvious why the characters in “Uncle Vanya” are perverse enough to stay in the same room together. Sure, blood and economic codependency bind them, but if they drive each other as nuts as they all keep saying,